Review2003/2004
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NPG_AR_04_text.film 10/12/05 9:52 AM Page 1 Review 2003/2004 2 Preface by the Chairman of the Trustees 3 Foreword by the Director 4 The Collections 8 Photographs Collection 10 Heinz Archive and Library 12 Conservation 14 The Galleries 16 Exhibitions 18 Education 20 Partnerships and National Programmes 24 Information Technology 26 Visitors 28 Trading 30 Fundraising and Development 36 Financial Report 40 Research 42 List of Acquisitions 48 Staff The Regency in the Weldon Galleries © Andrew Putler Front cover Mary Moser by George Romney, c.1770–71 Back cover David David Beckham by Sam Taylor-Wood, 2004 © the artist NPG_AR_04_text.film 10/12/05 9:52 AM Page 2 This Review records another highly successful During the year we welcomed two new Trustees, 2 year for the Gallery under the energetic leadership Amelia Chilcott Fawcett, an investment banker, and comprehensive management approach of recently appointed to chair our Development Sandy Nairne in his first full year as our Director. Board, and Professor Robert Boucher, an engineer and Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University. We have continued to develop the collection We lost an ex-officio Trustee with the tragically with some outstanding acquisitions and untimely death of Lord Williams of Mostyn. exciting commissions. Three of the galleries, He has been succeeded by Baroness Amos, the refurbished Weldon Regency Galleries, the Lord President of the Council. Tudor and the Early Twentieth Century Galleries, were imaginatively rehung, while the frequent We relish and revel in our responsibility to rotation of portraits in the Contemporary build and exhibit a collection of portraits of Galleries continues to attract wide approval. the men and women who have made or are making their mark on the history and culture Our programme of exhibitions embraced a of our nation. A triumphant contribution was broad spectrum of subjects and artists, ranging the publication in January, after six years from garden designers and those in domestic in preparation, of the Complete Illustrated service to glamorous celebrities and ‘ordinary Catalogue of the Primary Collection, which people’ – a rich panoply of portraiture – while was carried out in tandem with researching beyond London we continued to improve our the 10,000 illustrations in the forthcoming Preface by the partnerships, complementing our portraits Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Chairman of at Bodelwyddan with innovative interactive the Trustees displays. In both the main Gallery and its regional It is immensely encouraging that the expertise partners, our Education department has gone and enthusiasm of our Director, curators and Board of Trustees from strength to strength, its access programme all our staff are impressively reflected in the 1 April 2003 to 31 March 2004 finding new audiences and achieving several increase in visitors to the Gallery and to our Sir David Scholey, CBE awards for excellence. exhibition partners around the country, to all Chairman of whom the Trustees extend their gratitude. Professor David Cannadine, FBA, FRSL Throughout the year we have continued Vice-Chairman to benefit from a wide range of supporters, David Scholey The Rt. Hon. Dr John Reid, MP including the National Art Collections Fund, Lord President of the Council, ex officio the Heritage Lottery Fund, our patrons and our (to June 2003) members, personal and corporate. It is vital for The Rt. Hon. Lord Williams of Mostyn, Lord President of the Council, ex officio us to generate funding from private sources to (to September 2003) augment the monies we receive from a prudent The Rt. Hon. Baroness Amos, but pressured public purse in the form of Grant- Lord President of the Council, ex officio in-Aid, which is among the lowest per visitor (from October 2003) of all the national museums and galleries. Professor Phillip King, CBE President of the RA, ex officio Professor Robert Boucher, CBE, FREng (from June 2003) Amelia Chilcott Fawcett, CBE (from June 2003) Chair of the Development Board Flora Fraser Sir Max Hastings Professor Ludmilla Jordanova Sir Christopher Ondaatje, CBE, OC Tom Phillips, CBE, RA Professor The Earl Russell, FBA Sara Selwood Alexandra Shulman Sir John Weston, KCMG Chair of the Audit and Compliance Committee Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, DL NPG_AR_04_text.film 10/12/05 9:52 AM Page 3 Following ten years of extensive building much public and critical acclaim for the BP Portrait activity, some of the past year was taken up and Travel Awards; Tessa Traeger’s photographs with a review of the Gallery’s policies and the in A Gardener’s Labyrinth; Circling the Square; creation of a plan for the next five years. The the newly launched Schweppes Photographic new plan focuses on developing the portrait Portrait Prize; and for the fascinating servants’ collection, sharing it more widely and developing portraits in all media selected for Below Stairs, activities and participation around it. In a period organised with the Scottish National Portrait of considerable constraints on public funding Gallery. At the end of the year, a remarkable such a plan can only be achieved through and highly popular contrast was presented by a combination of increased investment from the retrospective view of Cecil Beaton portrait government along with the financial input of photographs paired with the anonymous subjects ticketed exhibitions, sponsorship, and income in the 1,263 photographic postcards in We from trading, together with greater support Are The People, drawn from the collection of from members, patrons and benefactors. Tom Phillips. That central work of developing the collection Our mission to share the collection around the continued with the acquisition of a number UK was boosted by the relaunch of the displays of outstanding portraits. They ranged from at Bodelwyddan. Support from the government’s William Parry’s conversation piece of the Tahitian Strategic Commissioning scheme enabled a step Omai, pictured with the scientists Joseph Banks change in education provision at our National Foreword by and Dr Daniel Solander, and George Romney’s Trust partnership houses, Montacute and the Director portrait of the founding Royal Academician Beningbrough, and further collaborations with Mary Moser to the photograph albums of Lady Dove Cottage, Grasmere, the Graves Art Gallery, Ottoline Morrell and Carlo Pellegrini’s watercolour Sheffield, and with Sunderland Museum and caricature of the statesman Benjamin Disraeli. Winter Garden as part of an agreement with Some of these and other acquisitions were made the new North-Eastern Museums hub. Equally possible through generous support from the important has been the extension to our education Heritage Lottery Fund, the National Art Collections and outreach programmes, together with new Fund and many individual supporters and access work, all of which contributed to our Gold benefactors. The need to find greater resources Award in the Tourism for All category as part of for the acquisition of important portraits will the 2004 Excellence in England Tourism Awards. be a key issue during the years ahead. The reopening of the Regency display in the Several significant commissions are featured redesigned Weldon Galleries, the rehang of the in the Review, including Sam Taylor-Wood’s Tudor Gallery, together with the new arrangement innovative video portrait of the footballer for the early twentieth-century portraits and David Beckham, made possible by JPMorgan many smaller displays, including those supported through the Fund for New Commissions. by Deloitte as the Gallery’s Contemporary The new edition of the Complete Illustrated Photographic Displays Partner, all brought a Catalogue, the digital Woodward Portrait positive public response and the second highest Explorer, and the ever-increasing range of figure for St Martin’s Place of 1.42m visitors. information and images on the website We must hope that this enthusiasm for what demonstrate the Gallery’s determination to is special about the National Portrait Gallery make research about and knowledge of the can be matched in the years ahead with public collection as widely available as possible. and private funds for the strengthening, display The appearance of the Gallery’s print and and sharing of the collection, and the further publicity was also renewed through the visual development of interpretation and learning. identity project: bringing the image of the institution in line with its work. Sandy Nairne The exhibition programme began with the successful Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition going on from the Gallery to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, and then to the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. There were high attendances and NPG_AR_04_text.film 10/12/05 9:52 AM Page 4 4 John Pym by or after Edward Bower, c.1640 The Collections Great progress has been made in digitising the Foundation, Flora Fraser and Peter Soros, collections, with support from the Department Sir Christopher Ondaatje and Linda L. Brownrigg. for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British We are also most grateful to the Art Fund, and Art, as described below in the sections on the especially to the Heritage Lottery Fund, for their Photographs Collection and the Heinz Archive welcome support for the acquisition at auction and Library. More than 50,000 portraits from of George Romney’s portrait of the flower painter the Primary and the Reference Collections are Mary Moser. She and Angelica Kauffmann now available online and it is hoped to develop were the only two female founding members this resource-intensive work further as and when of the Royal Academy in 1768. Not previously funding can be found. The year was also marked represented in the collection, Moser now hangs by the publication of a new hard-copy edition alongside Kauffmann and other early Royal of the Complete Illustrated Catalogue of the Academicians in Room 12, which tells the story Primary Collection, discussed in more detail of the arts in eighteenth-century Britain.